Conventional forage harvester headers for cutting and chopping row crops, such as corn, are constructed with row units that require at least general alignment with the rows of crop being harvested. The forage harvester row units sever the standing row crop from the ground and convey the severed crop rearwardly to be chopped into small pieces by the rotating cutterhead. Row crops are planted in rows that are spaced a predetermined uniform distance from one another; however, this predetermined row spacing can be different from crop to crop and from one farmer to another. Accordingly, it has been desirable to provide a crop harvesting header that is operable to sever row crops irrespective of the row spacing, or even the direction of the rows relative to the forage harvester header as the machine is moved across a field. Moreover, current farming practices have some traditionally row crops planted in a non-row seeding patterns. Such non-row crops can be harvested by a forage harvesting header that is non-row sensitive.
To meet this need for a non-row sensitive forage harvester header, headers have been constructed with at least one, and usually two, rotatable cutting members at the forward, crop-engaging portion of the forage harvester header. This at least one rotatable cutting member is driven to sever the crop across substantially the entire working width as the header as the machine is moved across the field. All of the crop located in front of the header, irrespective of row spacing, or even the existence of row placement, is severed by the rotating cutting member. The cutting members capture the crop material and convey the severed crop material rearwardly with the rotation of the cutting member to a pair of rotating transfer members that receive the severed crop material from the cutting members and transfers the severed crop to the cutterhead for further harvesting treatment. These transfer members are often formed as a drum-shaped body having a plurality of circumferentially spaced fingers arranged in vertically spaced rows along the periphery of the drum surface. Alternatively, the transfer members may comprise a plurality of vertically spaced coaxial discs provided with a plurality of peripheral recesses for receiving the stalks.
The conventional transfer members have encountered difficulty in delivering the severed stalks to the cutterhead. This problem can be attributed to the path defined between the transfer member and the cutterhead for the movement of the row crop, as the row crop is not controlled in movement into the cutterhead. After conventional transfer members disengage the severed row crop in front of the cutterhead the row crop needs to be conveyed into the cutterhead for a distance without engagement of the transfer members to cause the flow of the crop material to enter the cutterhead in an orientation with the severed end being fed into the cutterhead first. For this reason, the flow of crop material into the cutterhead can become clogged. These problems are more evident in high capacity forage harvesters that utilize more than one transfer member rearwardly of the cutting members.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,024,846, granted on Apr. 11, 2006, to Ulrich Bruening, the crop harvesting header is constructed with four rotary members that engage standing crop material to sever the standing crop material and convey the severed crop rearwardly into a chopping mechanism. The movement of the severed crop material is facilitated by the formation of chutes that capture ears of corn for delivery rearwardly to the chopping mechanism.
A non-row sensitive forage harvester header is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,032,444, granted to Mar. 7, 2000, to Maynard M. Herron, et al, wherein a pair of rotary disk cutters is disposed at the forward end of the header to engage standing row crop material. The disk cutters sever the standing crop which is trapped in the counter rotating rotors by endless gripping members that are entrained around the rotary disk cutters. The endless gripping members extend rearwardly from the corresponding disk cutters to trap the severed crop material between the opposing gripping members to convey the severed crop material rearwardly. The header is formed with upper and lower runs of gripping members with the upper runs being entrained around the upper portions of the rotary disk cutters to guide the severed crop trapped in the lower opposing runs of gripping members.
A non-row sensitive forage harvester header is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,225, issued to Richard Wuebbels, et al, on Mar. 3, 1998. The header is formed with multiple transversely spaced rotary disk cutters that are operable to sever standing row crop material, irrespective of the orientation of the row of crop material to the approaching disk cutters. The rotary disk cutters are operable to convey the severed crop material to a rearward portion of the header where multiple rotary transfer disks are positioned to convey the severed crop material toward the center of the header to be fed into the chopping mechanism. Similarly, the non-row sensitive forage harvester header disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,804, issued on Aug. 24, 1993, to Alfred Bertling, et al, is formed with multiple transversely arrayed rotary disk cutters that convey crop material severed thereby rearwardly to a pair of rotary transfer drums that direct the severed crop material into the chopping mechanism.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a non-row sensitive forage harvester header that utilizes a single transfer member cooperable with two counter-rotating cutting members to effectively feed severed row crop material into a cutterhead for chopping the row crop material into smaller pieces.